Starter Guide: Building a Gaming Room For Beginners

This is a starter guide for everything you might need to build out your own gaming room – these are only suggestions – have fun with it!

If you are a gamer, then you will know how useful it can be to get in the zone. You should find that your general approach to gaming is better when you feel fully concentrated.

And if you are in a room dedicated to gaming, it should naturally be easier to keep your concentration on point at all times. For this reason, I highly recommend you invest in building a gaming room. Where do you start, though?

With so much to think about, how do you go about building a gaming room that feels right for you?

Table of Contents

In this started guide, I will run you through the same thought process I used myself. Hopefully, this will leave you with a gaming room that you feel is perfectly suitable. These simple must-manage tasks should, in the end, create a gaming setup that feels superior.

You Need a Central Point

The first thing I want you to think about would be the point in the room where you will game from.

For some, space requirements mean they have to be kind of forced into a corner of the room.

If this is purely for gaming, though, you could easily have yourself as the focal point in the room.

A friend of mine said he had designed his gaming room to have the entire setup right in the middle of the room.

I queried if it made it feel like a conference room, but when I seen it in-person it looked great.

Find a key point in the room where everything will be focused around, though.

The benefit I liked most about the desk being central was that everything else – lighting, art, décor, etc. – could be placed on the walls without looking messy or too busy.

Here you can start to think about storage solutions for the gaming room too.

You Need to Create a Base Atmosphere

Next, I recommend you do all of the basic décor first. This should include things like painting the walls and changing the flooring.

I recommend you go for contrast with this.

For example, light walls with dark flooring, or vice versa. It tends to make the lighting that you choose look a bit better. I prefer darker walls personally as I feel it creates a more enveloped, atmospheric feel during the evenings.

We have a whole section on choosing the right paint ideas for your gaming room.

For flooring type, you are free to choose whatever you like. I have my gaming setup on the bottom floor of my house so I went for a wooden finish.

You might, though, find that going for something carpeted or more soundproofed would make sense if you are upstairs or you are in an apartment.

Think about noise traveling and noise pollution when you consider your flooring options.

You Need a Dedicated Desk

Next, you should build your gaming room around your desk. Choose the type of desk you like first, and everything else will kind of fall into line.

I prefer a desk with plenty of spacing and shelving, but others prefer something more miniscule.

It really just comes down to personal preference at this point. I like a larger desk with curves and with storage shelving space that I can work with.

However, for a desk in the middle of the room this can look a bit weird.

You might prefer, then, to use wall space for storage and get a simple, clean-looking desk that sits in the middle of the room.

Again, this is your choice but – buy a desk – whether it is a dedicated gaming one is up to you. The material is a personal choice, but I prefer desks made from metal for gaming.

Invest in a New Gaming Chair

The next step is to buy a quality gaming chair, something that you can see yourself sitting in for hours.

I personally recommend you buy a proper PC gaming chair, not a knock-off.

You might pay more, but something made from the right material and with ergonomics in mind will always feel better than a run of the mill office chair.

You want something with plenty of padding around the neck and the arms areas. Your arms will be rested on the arm areas, and your neck will likely be tilted back as you play.

So, you want to try and find something that can provide meaningful support and cover for all parts of your body – neck included.

Material is a personal choice – I prefer a leather or vinyl option, others prefer fabric, mesh, cotton etc.

The choice is yours, but it does matter. Think about accessories for your gaming chair too.

Peripherals

The next step is to buy your actual peripherals.

For me, this means getting things like your gaming monitor(s) in place.

If you are going for something in the middle of the room then naturally you will not have them wall-mounted.

If you are going for a corner or wall-adjacent desk, though, you should consider wall mounting.

This opens up valuable space on the desk itself. This can allow for more storage space for things you use like pads, speakers, headphones, etc.

Peripherals like your monitor are something I will leave to you to decide: you should know what you want in terms of style, presentation, and performance.

Try and keep your monitors above eye level, but only slightly.

This works well so that your monitors are never in a position where you feel like your neck is cramping up trying to look at them whilst playing.

This is definitely important when it comes to stacked monitors.

Buying the Essential Accessories

Next, you need to try and invest in things like your keyboard and mouse. I recommend buying a properly good set of keyboard and mouse designs.

For me, investing in a good quality keyboard changed how I played. I felt more responsive and less likely to make mistakes.

Also, I do recommend you buy a wired mouse and keyboard as they tend to be more responsive.

Given you will be sitting at the desk anyway, the benefits of wireless will soon vanish.

One thing to really focus on would be buying the right kind of mouse. I recommend that you look into more ergonomic options.

For example, I bought a mouse that you hold vertically and it has helped me with things like finger strain and wrist discomfort.

Buying these accessories, though, are vital to making a gaming setup worth sitting in and playing games in.

Think About Your Surroundings

Now that you have the essentials – I am not going to insult your intelligence further by suggesting you need to buy a gaming PC or console – you need to look at the design of the room. For me, this comes down to things like your lighting and your general ambience.

I found it was important to buy some LED lighting strips.

They helped to add lighting to the walls and to the desk itself without taking up too much room, costing too much to run, or anything else.

I recommend you read over my guide on using LEDs with desks for a better idea on how to optimally install them.

The atmosphere of your room is very important, so take this into account when thinking about your sound set up as well.

The audio atmosphere is as important as a stylish visual design for your setup, trust me!

Speaking of Sound

I found the best thing for me was to get the speakers off the desk and instead into the corners of the room. I created a kind of cinema style design.

So basically, I had four speakers, one in each corner of the room. This meant that when playing it was creating a kind of all-around sound experience, which just felt a bit more engaging.

I also got myself a little stand that stood next to my desk for my headphones to hang from.

This meant they were not draped over the desk, getting in my way. Instead, they were simply hanging up when I needed them.

Removing as much clutter as you can from the desk can go a long, long way to making sure you get maximum value from the size of your desk.

For me, the sound being off-desk – even with a soundbar – works best for atmospheric purposes.

Lastly, be sure to check out my guide to soundproofing if you want to keep the noise down!

Bringing It All Together

Once you have all of the above in mind, it should hopefully become easier for you to start thinking of your gaming room.

You now should hopefully have a clear idea of what you need to buy, and where it all needs to be installed.

Again, take care of the foundational stuff first – walls, ceiling, flooring, and desk setup. Everything else can then flow from there.

I have seen many setups and there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to do this. You can find some great inspiration online, but my preference has always been something clean over something too drastic.

Keep it fresh and simple and you could be left with a very satisfying-looking gaming setup come the end.

For me, the setup is as important as the actual specs that you are playing with. Get the right setup, and everything else feels like it simply falls into place.